Healthy, wealthy and wise

Health and education. Two words most often heard twinned with phrases such as 'cuts to' and 'more funds should be allocated'. Also, 'private' and 'state'. They're both viewed, by most people, as very good things.

And because both of these sectors are so highly valued by society as a whole, they are serious investors in security systems and products.

Both are uniquely positioned to take advantage of new advances in security technology, as the 'fear factor' that is liable to grip other organisations is less prevalent. Schools, and particularly universities, tend to embrace new technology faster than any other area of society, while hospitals and healthcare facilities are accustomed to dealing with continuous development in medical technology, and are thus less averse to IP and other new forms of security and surveillance products and delivery systems.

An example of a school taking on board new technology is the primary school in Wiltshire that has trialled a biometric fingerprinting system to register and measure attendance of pupils. Students use check-in stations each morning, where the system identifies and verifies who they are, while the parents of absent students are notified using text messages on their mobile phones.

And let's not forget the primary reason why both sectors require protection – they are not only charged with looking after the welfare and future of our population, but also in securing much valuable equipment, and in the case of hospitals and pharmacies, drugs.

The multi-campus nature of many hospitals and especially universities makes them prime candidates for centrally monitored wireless IP CCTV systems, as well as linked access and alarm control. They have been amongst the fastest adopters of LAN-based systems in the world.

Research and teaching hospitals, in particular, require CCTV to be linked with cameras of a more 'broadcast' nature in order to show live or recorded footage of surgical procedures, sometimes to conferences and universities around the world.

Both industries also regularly face security issues involving threats or assaults upon staff.

Ambulance safety

Chris Lewis Security has provided the East Anglian Ambulance NHS Trust with a Solaris surveillance system from Bewator, linked to its Eventys DVR. The system includes five integrated Solaris dome cameras and three fixed mini-dome cameras.

The perimeter, access to the control centre and the reception are all monitored. The Trust's head of IT, Ian Arbuthnot, said: "Like any public

service, we have unfortunately had instances where individuals have threatened staff. People cruise past the building and turn up unannounced in the early hours. Monitoring these activities is very reassuring.

"When staff members finish their shifts in the early hours, we are able to ensure, if necessary, that they get to and into their cars safely. They, and we, feel more secure."

It's who you Knowsley

MCW Group has deployed 263 Axis network cameras across the two main campuses of Knowsley Community College in Roby and Kirkby, near Liverpool, with the total contract valued at close to £450,000.

MCW integrated the cameras into the campus-wide network and configured the Milestone XProtect system to manage output from the cameras. The output from the cameras will be recorded on to six HP Proliant servers, with three servers installed at each site. The plan is for each server to handle output from 46 cameras, offering a maximum capacity of 276 cameras initially.

Each server will be connected via SCSI controllers to two 14 HDD modular storage arrays, delivering 300Gb per disk. The storage is designed to provide capacity for 28 days of images collected and compressed at eight frames per second. Storage and event management will be controlled by Milestone XProtect.

Ninety-six Axis 210As, 46 Axis 221s and four 232D dome network cameras will be deployed at the college's Ruby site, while at the Kirkby site 81 210As, 33 221s and three 232D cameras will be used.

Taking control

Gresham Wood Technical Furniture and Design has manufactured and installed furniture for a new control room at Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton. Replacing an older control room, the new facility incorporates a state of the art video wall, equipment storage and control room consoles.

Royal Sussex County Hospital is a major teaching hospital and is the accident and emergency centre for the south coast of England. The main security threats are drug related problems and aggressive behaviour against staff.

George Rutson, Gresham Wood director, says: "The control room operators now have a proactive working environment. The consoles were designed to give them maximum space, creating a more efficient control. This is further enhanced with the installation of ergonomic monitor arms for the console monitoring positions, the result of which has produced a user-friendly control room for the demands of CCTV operators."

Water gets smart

The Blackburn with Darwen Primary Care Trust has implemented the SmartWater forensic coding system in a bid to combat crime. And the system is also being used in several schools in the district.

SmartWater is similar to DNA, but more robust, its inventors claim, and it is not easily detected under normal lighting conditions. It contains "unique micro-dots and is virtually impossible to remove completely".

"The challenge to thieves is to remove every tiny speck of SmartWater from an item or face the high risk of being detected for the crime," the company says.

Working in partnership with the Blackburn with Darwen Community Safety Partnership, including Lancashire Constabulary, the PCT has applied SmartWater to all its equipment. PCT security management specialist Mike Threlfall said newly purchased items of property and equipment with SmartWater before they are distributed to the health centres and clinics.

"The SmartWater project is a new and exciting development in our bid to tackle the problem of burglary and theft from our premises," he said. "In addition to applying SmartWater to the usual items thieves target, the solution has also been used on medical equipment."

Councillor Andy Kay, chair of Blackburn with Darwen Community Safety Partnership, said: "SmartWater is already used in a number of our schools. We are sending a clear message to would-be burglars that Blackburn with Darwen is no easy target."

Taking care

FireCo Ltd has carried undertaken full Fire Risk Assessments at 38 care homes that are part of the CLS Care Services Group.

CLS is on the North West England's largest providers of high quality care for older people, and services that include 24-hour residential, nursing and day care.

Meeting the needs of the disabled, infirm and wheelchair-bound is of special concern to CLS. The Fire Risk assessment were carried out due to the introduction of the Regulatory Reform Fire Safety Order.

Fireco says CLS is the latest in a number of institutions using its Fire Risk Assessment Training and Consultancy services, including members of the National Care Association, English Community Care Association, and Scottish Care. The assessments include a full survey, supported by a full fire safety audit with recommendations.

Hospital lock-up

The Asklepios hospital in Parchim, Germany, has done away with mechanical keys and is using Häfele's Dialock locking system, based on Legic technology, to cover every door from its main entrance to the pharmacy shelves.

A central component of the solutions is the Dialock electronic locking and identification system, which is used to secure sensitive medical areas and service rooms. The system includes 56 wall terminals, 309 door terminals, 27 central locking components, and the 'Clinic' management software specially designed for hospital use.

All the components are controlled and managed on a chip card with integrated Legic transponder. The locking solution also includes a whole series of special solutions specifically designed for hospital use. For example, with their electronic keys, doctors attending an emergency case can override the control of the lifts, to save crucial minutes.

The sound of school

SDD Sound and Light has installed a Praesidio Public Address System from Bosch Security Systems for an extensive project for the three campuses of ACS International Schools in Greater London.

With a combined area of over 300 acres, the three vast ACS International School campuses in Cobham, Hillingdon and Egham enrol a total of 2,400 students, offering both day and boarding education. SDD provided a campus-wide system which could be linked together to provide pre-recorded announcements and other security features across the three sites.

Praesidio uses a network configuration, offering flexibility in terms of zone assignments and numbers, call stations, audio inputs, and outputs.

Nigel Clark, operations manager at SDD, said: "This is the most complex installation of the Bosch Praesidio system in the UK to date. It took a team of eight SDD engineers six months to complete, using all of the expertise of our IT engineers to successfully link the three systems together over the internet.

"At each campus, fibre optic connections link the buildings. The project required 30km of fibre optic cables and 20km of copper cabling for the speakers."

Panel of experts

Independent specialist mental health care service provider Partnerships in Care has installed Vistamatic's Vision Panels at three of its women's mental health service sites.

These have replaced the previous clear glass screens. And the panels meet the health, safety and security needs as well as promoting the patients' confidentiality and dignity. Designed for use in areas where entry needs to be restricted, the panels allow only for authorised use and offer complete control over clear or obscured vision into or out of each room.

Staff can observe through the panel with a special 'key restricta system', while patients can control admittance by turning an integral anti-ligature knurled knob mounted on the face of the panel inside the room. This allows a degree of privacy and respects the patients' rights to make decisions for themselves. The system can be overridden if it is deemed to be in the patients' best interest.

Digital infection

The Infectious Disease Unit of Busto Arsizio District Hospital in Italy has tested the wHospital system which is able to fully record the whole in-patient clinical process in digital format so that it can be consulted, using web technology, from anywhere in the hospital.

Records can be accessed from Tablet PCs linked by a wireless network, thus permitting medical personnel to view all the information on a given patient anywhere and at any time.

The system is the result of a partnership between Fluidmesh Networks, which helped install its wireless mesh network, It2b srl, and the Healthcare Automation and Organisation Group of the Bioengineering department at Milan Polytechnic.

Pietro Zoia, chief administrator of the hospital, said: "The hospital is now able to handle such crucially important work as the compilation and updating of medical records by computer. Experimentation with the innovative tool has brought us positive results in terms of operating efficiency.

Intercom MacCallum

The Peter MacCallum Cancer Institute has specified the Stentofon AlphaCom 80+ for its site in east Melbourne, Australia.

The system replaces an existing TouchLine exchange, initially as a direct replacement, with a view to connecting the exchange to new nodes via IP at a later date.

The Alphacom is for the Radiology department, which provides specialist consultation in the diagnosis, evaluation and radiotherapy treatment for the 9,000 in-patients who are cared for each year.

The AlphaCom will be integrated with CCTV to allow more efficient patient monitoring and communications with patients involved in various types of scanning and radiation therapy.

A Grande scheme

Polish installer Dipol has deployed ACTi's SED-2100R video server and SED-3200 transcoder at the St John Grande hospital in Krakow, to create an IP-based live video conferencing system.

The new system allows centralised control and high flexibility in areas where remote conferencing was impossible or restricted to voice only. Two of the server and transcoder sets were used for live video transmission of a medical surgery, while the other set was used for a conference lecture.

Two analogue broadcast cameras were used in the surgery room, with the live video footage transferred over the hospital's LAN network to the conference room. The transcoders were used to decode the MPEG4 stream from the network to allow projectors to display the remote video.

Happy campus

ACTi has also equipped a Californian high school with the same server and transcoder, allowing it to incorporate IP-based CCTV with its current DVR system.

The new system solves the distance limitation between analogue cameras and the DVR. By deploying a hybrid CCTV+DVR system, it provides a simple and cost effective solution over LAN environments, ACTi says.

Five fixed and one PTZ camera from six remote buildings were encoded by a video server and sent over the school LAN. The video was decoded back to analogue by the transcoder and then each feed is connected toa DVR input. No coaxial cable was used between the remote camera site and the DVR location, and maintaining the DVR interface meant the user did not have to adjust to a new system in order to view the footage.

Bus pass for students

Murcia University in South East Spain has introduced iClass Contactless Smart Cards and readers to its fleet of buses that transports students around the university and between its two campuses.

The university sells "transportation plans" to the students, which limits them to two bus rides a day within specific time periods. The existing procedure required bus drivers to hand count passengers and cross-reference that information to the number of tickets sold. Drivers were also responsible for remembering if a student had already ridden the bus, to prevent over-use of the system.

In addition, the bus contractor, Autocares Espuña did not have a reliable means of predicting usage patterns, and provide the correct number of buses for peak periods.

Autocares Espuña worked with Barcelona-based integrator Protelsa, which recommended the HID iClass RW300 contactless reader/writer and 13.56MHz contactless smart cards.

Students approach the reader with their card, but don't need to swipe. The reader checks the validity of the card and the student's usage and either responds with a green light indicating that the student can board the bus, or an orange light and a buzzer if the card is not valid. A text message appears on a screen telling the driver the reason the student is not authorised to ride.